Tel Aviv: The US and Israeli navies on August 1 launched a joint exercise in the Red Sea. The Israeli navy and the US Fifth fleet focus on protecting commercial ships from attacks by proxies of Iran. The exercise according to Israeli sources is also meant as a show of power to deter Iran.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ (IRGC) Navy maintains a covert presence in the Red Sea through an array of ships, including some that gather intelligence and act as forward bases, a top defence researcher asserted last week.
While the IRGC usually deploys forward base ships to act as intelligence-gatherers and enable rapid attack capabilities, the Iranian Navy, which is less well funded than its IRGC equivalent, unveiled last year its own forward base, in the form of a large ship called the IRIS Markan, a converted tanker, able to act as a mothership for naval operations, such as escorting Iranian tankers.
The Israeli Navy is participating in the exercise using SA’AR 5 missile ships and a SA’AR 4.5 missile ship, which will practice various missions alongside ships and a refuelling tanker from the US navy’s Fifth Fleet.
The US Fifth Fleet is based in Manama, Bahrain and includes naval forces operating in the Arabian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman, the Red Sea, parts of the Indian Ocean, the Straits of Hormuz, the Suez Canal and Bab al-Mandab.
The Red Sea and in particular the Suez Canal are a critical landmark for Israel. This is one of the largest and most important maritime trade routes in the world. No less than 25% of the world’s maritime trade traffic passes through this route, including goods and oil – from the Far East and the Gulf countries to the Mediterranean Sea and Europe.
Due to the importance of this space, Israel tries to secure and preserve the freedom of shipping there. This is against the background of Iranian attempts in recent years to influence the route. Their ambition is to exert pressure by their very presence there, also to influence the negotiations on returning to the nuclear agreement or alternatively as a possibility to respond to American actions in the Middle East.
In Tehran, they worked to establish a strategic partnership with Sudan, until this failed – and the latter expelled them. Iran kept ships in port in Sudan, vessels that moved around the Horn of Africa in order to gain influence in the region. Another action carried out by Iran is joining the Houthi rebels in Yemen. The Islamic Republic armed the rebels with coastal missiles and suicide drones – and established its ability to anchor off the coast of Yemen.
The Red Sea now sees a much greater presence of Israeli navy’s ships and the number will grow as the Iranian threats to shipping in this waterway also grow. The presence of the Israeli navy in the vicinity of Iran is to deter it from any hostility against Israel. In recent months, the Red Sea has seen some Iranian attacks on Israeli-owned cargo ships and some counter-attacks allegedly by Israel.
“It is clear that a real war is fought over and under the waters of the Red Sea,” an Israeli source said. The Israeli experts including a former commander of the Israeli navy, Vice Admiral (Ret.) Eliezer Marom said that the maritime threats posed by Iran are in the shape of commando operations. “They don’t have real modern combat ships but they have developed a fleet of deadly manned and unmanned combat boats.”
Israeli sources point to the fact that the Iranian navy is making a big effort in recent months to achieve a more aggressive capability with what it has in its inventory. The Iranians are training divers to use small home-built “Pocket Submarines” to enable attaching explosives to cargo ships and go back unharmed to small speed boats adapted to this mission.
According to a report in Israeli channel 12, a team of Iranian divers has been trained earlier this year in Malta. The channel said the Iranians are believed to have chosen Malta as a training site, due to its proximity to Italy, which is developing modern diving systems and accessibility. The Iranian have also sent two of their old warships to the Atlantic as what is considered a test to see how the Europeans and the US will act.
The US and Israel are monitoring the actions of the Iranian navy in the Gulf and the Red Sea, to protect American and Israeli-owned cargo ships. The Iranian effort to create a presence in the Red sea, Gulf and the Atlantic is affecting the deployment of the Israeli navy.
Equipped with very advanced SA’AR 6 corvettes and Dolphin 2 submarines, the Israeli navy according to sources is “deploying its vessels according to very exact intelligence”. The foreign press claimed that the Israeli navy has at least one submarine in the Gulf. The reports added that this submarine is capable of launching missiles to hit targets in Iran.
The Iranian maritime force came to the headlines after two events –The first was the sinking of the IRIS Kharg in the Persian Gulf on June 2. IRIS Kharg, was a British-built Oil-class tanker, and was the Iranian navy’s flagship and one of its most important vessels. The oil replenishment ship caught fire near the Iranian port of Jask.
The Iranian navy said hours after the fire broke out that firefighters had fought the fire for long hours to avoid its sinking. The navy said that the ship’s crew was not harmed. The cause of the fire was not mentioned by the Iranians but some weeks after the incident some media outlets, claimed that the fire was a result of a sabotage act.
The second development involving the Iranian navy was when two Iranian ships Makran and Sahand, in June last year sailed into the Atlantic. While the Iranians boasted that this long-range sail proves that its navy has become more capable, Israeli experts say that the Iranian navy has no real power and cannot pose any threat to navies in the area but only to cargo ships.
